This is an island of anomalies: the Irish peasants will puzzle you, perplex you, disappoint you with their inconsistencies, but keep from liking them if you can! There are a few cleaner and more comfortable homes in Lisdara and Knockcool than when we came, and Benella has been invaluable, although her reforms, as might be expected, are of an unusual character, and with her the wheels of progress never move silently, as they should, but always squeak. With the two golden sovereigns given her to spend, she has bought scissors, knives, hammers, boards, sewing materials, knitting needles, and yarn,--everything to work with, and nothing to eat, drink, or wear, though Heaven knows there is little enough of such things in Lisdara. “The quicker you wear 'em out, the better you'll suit me,” she says to the awestricken Lisdarians. “I'm a workin' woman myself, an' it's my ladies' money I've spent this time; but I'll make out to keep you in brooms and scrubbin' brushes, if only you'll use 'em! You mustn't take offence at anything I say to you, for I'm part Irish--my grandmother was Mary Boyce of Trim; and if she hadn't come away and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, mebbe I wouldn't have known a scrubbin' brush by sight myself!” Chapter XXI. Lachrymae Hibernicae. 'What ails you, Sister Erin, that your face Is, like your mountains, still bedewed with tears? . . . . . . . Forgive! forget! lest harsher lips should say, Like your turf fire, your rancour smoulders long, And let Oblivion strew Time's ashes o'er your wrong.' Alfred Austin. At tea-time, and again after our simple dinner--for Bridget Thunder's repertory is not large, and Benella's is quite unsuited to the Knockcool markets--we wend our way to a certain house that stands by itself on the road to Lisdara. It is only a whitewashed cabin with green window trimmings, but it is a larger and more comfortable one than we commonly see, and it is the perfection of neatness within and without. The stone wall that encloses it is whitewashed too, and the iron picket railing at the top is painted bright green; the stones on the posts are green also, and there is the prettiest possible garden, with nicely cut borders of box. In fine, if ever there was a cheery place to look at, Sarsfield Cottage is that one; and if ever there was a cheerless gentleman, it is Mr. Jordan, who dwells there. Mrs. Wogan Odevaine commended him to us as the man of all others with whom to discuss Irish questions, if we wanted, for once in a way, to hear a thoroughly disaffected, outraged, wrong-headed, and rancorous view of things.